Screen assemblies are frequently used in completions in association with gravel packed around the screen sections in the annular space that surrounds the screens. Getting a good distribution of gravel is important for the effectiveness of the gravel pack as an aide in trapping particulates in the produced fluids and thus extending the service life of the screens. Getting the gravel to distribute evenly particularly in horizontal completions has always been an issue. Another issue is the tendency of the gravel to bridge so that gaps over the screens are formed where there is no packed gravel. Apart from the operational issues there are issues with ease of assembly of the joints of screen and connecting the bypasses that go through the screens or outside of the screens.
One design that connects the annular spaces between screen and base pipe of adjacent screen sections is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,405,800 where a passage from the adjacent annular spaces under adjacent screens goes through an annular passage in a coupling using an internal mandrel that spans the joint with openings at opposed ends to connect the adjacent annular spaces between adjacent screens. Other examples of flow through connectors used with screens are U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,048,061; 6,170, 522; 6,192,924; 6,196,596; 4,508,135; 7,147,003; 6,409,219; 5,082,052; 6,752,207; 5,868,200; 5,476,143; 4,510,996; 6,923,262 and US Publication 2009/0095471.
These designs had various limitations in the areas of ease of assembly, durability or in the limited configurations they made possible. They connected bypasses individually across a joint; they had a clamshell design that had to be bolted across a joint; they provided a limited number of bypass orientations before the pattern repeated or they simply connected annular spaces under adjacent screen sections. The present invention addresses these issues in a way that those skilled in the art will appreciate that allows rapid fluid connection of bypasses across a threaded connection as well as multiple patterns of a bypass with gravel outlets in combination with bypasses that have no outlets so as to orient the gravel outlet bypass on a given joint in multiple circumferential orientations without using complex structures such as timed threads or floating bypass tube assemblies, which are free to rotate during make up on the rig floor. These and other aspects of the present invention will be more readily apparent to those skilled in the art from a review of the discussion of the preferred embodiment and the associated drawings while appreciating that the full scope of the invention is to be found in the appended claims.